Yazid ibn Umar al-Fazari

Yazid ibn Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari (died 750) was the last Umayyad governor of Iraq. A son of former governor Umar ibn Hubayra, he became a partisan of Caliph Marwan II in the Third Islamic Civil War, but failed to stem the onslaught of the Abbasid Revolution. Defeated, he was captured and executed by the Abbasids.

Biography

Like his father, Umar ibn Hubayra, Yazid was a Qaysi from the Jazira, and claimed to belong to the traditional Arab nobility although the family is unknown from the sources until Umar himself.^[1]

Yazid served as governor of Jund Qinnasrin under Walid II (r. 743–744),^[2] but shifted his support to Marwan II (r. 744–750) when the latter came to Syria.^[3] Marwan appointed Yazid to his father's old governorship of Iraq, which at the time was held by forces opposed to Marwan. Yazid was therefore forced to spend the first years of his office in establishing his authority in his province. He defeated the Kharijites at Ayn al-Tamr, thereby subduing the Sawad, and managed to extend his control also to Ahwaz, Jibal, and the Jazira.^[4] Preoccupied with these campaigns, however, he neglected lending assistance to the governor of Khurasan, Nasr ibn Sayyar, when he was faced with the outbreak of the Abbasid Revolution. In the event, as the Abbasid armies swept westwards, they defeated Yazid's deputy Amir ibn Jubara and reached Iraq. Yazid was chased from Kufa by a rebellion of the Yaman faction, and fled to Wasit. There he was besieged by the Abbasids for eleven months, after which he surrendered to al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba, who had him and his senior officers executed.^[3][4]

Two of his sons, Dawud, who was with Yazid at Wasit, and Muthanna, who was governor of al-Yamama, were also killed by the Abbasids, while a third, Mukhallad, survived in Syria, where he and his descendants retained their influence.^[3]

References

Sources

• Crone, Patricia (1980). Slaves on horses: the evolution of the Islamic polity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52940-9. 
• Vadet, J.-C. (1986). "Ibn Hubayra". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden, and New York: BRILL. p. 802. ISBN 90-04-08118-6.